450 lines
24 KiB
Plaintext
450 lines
24 KiB
Plaintext
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"REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T USE PASCAL"
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Back in the good old days -- the "Golden Era" of computers, it was
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easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called "Real Men"
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and "Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the Real
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Men were the ones that understood computer programming, and the Quiche
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Eaters were the ones that didn't. A real computer programmer said
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things like "DO 10 I=1,10" and "ABEND" (they actually talked in
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capital letters, you understand), and the rest of the world said
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things like "computers are too complicated for me" and "I can't relate
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to computers -- they're so impersonal". (A previous work [1] points
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out that Real Men don't "relate" to anything, and aren't afraid of
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being impersonal.)
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But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which
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little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens,
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12-year-old kids can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids
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and Pac-Man, and anyone can buy and even understand their very own
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Personal Computer. The Real Programmer is in danger of becoming
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extinct, of being replaced by high-school students with TRASH-80's.
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There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical
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high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this
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difference is made clear, it will give these kids something to aspire
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to -- a role model, a Father Figure. It will also help explain to the
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employers of Real Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the
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Real Programmers on their staff with 12-year-old Pac-Man players (at a
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considerable salary savings).
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Languages
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The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the
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programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use FORTRAN.
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Quiche Eaters use PASCAL. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of PASCAL, gave
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a talk once at which he was asked "How do you pronounce your name?".
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He replied, "You can either call me by name, pronouncing it 'Veert',
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or call me by value, 'Worth'." One can tell immediately from this
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comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater. The only parameter
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passing mechanism endorsed by Real Programmers is
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call-by-value-return, as implemented in the IBM\370 FORTRAN-G and H
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compilers. Real programmers don't need all these abstract concepts to
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get their jobs done -- they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a
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FORTRAN IV compiler, and a beer.
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* Real Programmers do List Processing in FORTRAN.
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* Real Programmers do String Manipulation in FORTRAN.
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* Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in FORTRAN.
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* Real Programmers do Artificial Intelligence programs in FORTRAN.
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If you can't do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you
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can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing.
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Structured Programming
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The academics in computer science have gotten into the "structured
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programming" rut over the past several years. They claim that programs
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are more easily understood if the programmer uses some special
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language constructs and techniques. They don't all agree on exactly
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which constructs, of course, and the examples they use to show their
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particular point of view invariably fit on a single page of some
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obscure journal or another -- clearly not enough of an example to
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convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thought I was the best
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programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe
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program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000-line
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programs that WORKED. (Really!) Then I got out into the Real World. My
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first task in the Real World was to read and understand a 200,000-line
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FORTRAN program, then speed it up by a factor of two. Any Real
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Programmer will tell you that all the Structured Coding in the world
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won't help you solve a problem like that -- it takes actual talent.
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Some quick observations on Real Programmers and Structured
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Programming:
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* Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTO's.
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* Real Programmers can write five-page-long DO loops without getting
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confused.
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* Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements -- they make the
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code more interesting.
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* Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can
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save 20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop.
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* Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
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* Since FORTRAN doesn't have a structured IF, REPEAT ... UNTIL, or
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CASE statement, Real Programmers don't have to worry about not
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using them. Besides, they can be simulated when necessary using
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assigned GOTO's.
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Data Structures have also gotten a lot of press lately. Abstract Data
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Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings have become popular in
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certain circles. Wirth (the above-mentioned Quiche Eater) actually
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wrote an entire book [2] contending that you could write a program
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based on data structures, instead of the other way around. As all Real
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Programmers know, the only useful data structure is the Array.
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Strings, lists, structures, sets -- these are all special cases of
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arrays and can be treated that way just as easily without messing up
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your programing language with all sorts of complications. The worst
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thing about fancy data types is that you have to declare them, and
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Real Programming Languages, as we all know, have implicit typing based
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on the first letter of the (six character) variable name.
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Operating Systems
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What kind of operating system is used by a Real Programmer? CP/M? God
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forbid -- CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating system. Even
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little old ladies and grade school students can understand and use
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CP/M.
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Unix is a lot more complicated of course -- the typical Unix hacker
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never can remember what the PRINT command is called this week -- but
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when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. People
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don't do Serious Work on Unix systems: they send jokes around the
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world on UUCP-net and write adventure games and research papers.
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No, your Real Programmer uses OS\370. A good programmer can find and
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understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got in his JCL
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manual. A great programmer can write JCL without referring to the
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manual at all. A truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in
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a 6 megabyte core dump without using a hex calculator. (I have
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actually seen this done.)
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OS is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to destroy
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days of work with a single misplaced space, so alertness in the
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programming staff is encouraged. The best way to approach the system
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is through a keypunch. Some people claim there is a Time Sharing
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system that runs on OS\370, but after careful study I have come to the
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conclusion that they were mistaken.
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Programming Tools
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What kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a Real
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Programmer could run his programs by keying them into the front panel
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of the computer. Back in the days when computers had front panels,
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this was actually done occasionally. Your typical Real Programmer knew
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the entire bootstrap loader by memory in hex, and toggled it in
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whenever it got destroyed by his program. (Back then, memory was
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memory -- it didn't go away when the power went off. Today, memory
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either forgets things when you don't want it to, or remembers things
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long after they're better forgotten.) Legend has it that Seymore Cray,
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inventor of the Cray I supercomputer and most of Control Data's
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computers, actually toggled the first operating system for the CDC7600
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in on the front panel from memory when it was first powered on.
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Seymore, needless to say, is a Real Programmer.
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One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer for Texas
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Instruments. One day he got a long distance call from a user whose
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system had crashed in the middle of saving some important work. Jim
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was able to repair the damage over the phone, getting the user to
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toggle in disk I/O instructions at the front panel, repairing system
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tables in hex, reading register contents back over the phone. The
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moral of this story: while a Real Programmer usually includes a
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keypunch and lineprinter in his toolkit, he can get along with just a
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front panel and a telephone in emergencies.
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In some companies, text editing no longer consists of ten engineers
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standing in line to use an 029 keypunch. In fact, the building I work
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in doesn't contain a single keypunch. The Real Programmer in this
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situation has to do his work with a "text editor" program. Most
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systems supply several text editors to select from, and the Real
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Programmer must be careful to pick one that reflects his personal
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style. Many people believe that the best text editors in the world
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were written at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center for use on their Alto
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and Dorado computers [3]. Unfortunately, no Real Programmer would ever
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use a computer whose operating system is called SmallTalk, and would
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certainly not talk to the computer with a mouse.
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Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated
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into editors running on more reasonably named operating systems --
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EMACS and VI being two. The problem with these editors is that Real
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Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as bad
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a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No the Real Programmer
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wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated,
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cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be precise.
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It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely
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resembles transmission line noise than readable text [4]. One of the
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more entertaining games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a
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command line and try to guess what it does. Just about any possible
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typing error while talking with TECO will probably destroy your
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program, or even worse -- introduce subtle and mysterious bugs in a
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once working subroutine.
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For this reason, Real Programmers are reluctant to actually edit a
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program that is close to working. They find it much easier to just
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patch the binary object code directly, using a wonderful program
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called SUPERZAP (or its equivalent on non-IBM machines). This works so
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well that many working programs on IBM systems bear no relation to the
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original FORTRAN code. In many cases, the original source code is no
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longer available. When it comes time to fix a program like this, no
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manager would even think of sending anything less than a Real
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Programmer to do the job -- no Quiche Eating structured programmer
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would even know where to start. This is called "job security".
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Some programming tools NOT used by Real Programmers:
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* FORTRAN preprocessors like MORTRAN and RATFOR. The Cuisinarts of
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programming -- great for making Quiche. See comments above on
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structured programming.
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* Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps.
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* Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity,
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destroy most of the interesting uses for EQUIVALENCE, and make it
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impossible to modify the operating system code with negative
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subscripts. Worst of all, bounds checking is inefficient.
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* Source code maintenance systems. A Real Programmer keeps his code
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locked up in a card file, because it implies that its owner cannot
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leave his important programs unguarded [5].
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The Real Programmer at Work
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Where does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of programs are
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worthy of the efforts of so talented an individual? You can be sure
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that no Real Programmer would be caught dead writing
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accounts-receivable programs in COBOL, or sorting mailing lists for
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People magazine. A Real Programmer wants tasks of earth-shaking
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importance (literally!).
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* Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing
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atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray I supercomputers.
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* Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding
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Russian transmissions.
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* It was largely due to the efforts of thousands of Real Programmers
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working for NASA that our boys got to the moon and back before the
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Russkies.
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* Real Programmers are at work for Boeing designing the operating
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systems for cruise missiles.
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Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet
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Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire
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operating system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With
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a combination of large ground-based FORTRAN programs and small
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spacecraft-based assembly language programs, they are able to do
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incredible feats of navigation and improvisation -- hitting
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ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years in space,
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repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and
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batteries. Allegedly, one Real Programmer managed to tuck a
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pattern-matching program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in
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a Voyager spacecraft that searched for, located, and photographed a
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new moon of Jupiter.
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The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity assist
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trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes
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within 80 +/-3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to
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trust a PASCAL program (or a PASCAL programmer) for navigation to
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these tolerances.
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As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for the
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U.S. Government -- mainly the Defense Department. This is as it should
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be. Recently, however, a black cloud has formed on the Real Programmer
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horizon. It seems that some highly placed Quiche Eaters at the Defense
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Department decided that all Defense programs should be written in some
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grand unified language called "ADA" ((C), DoD). For a while, it seemed
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that ADA was destined to become a language that went against all the
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precepts of Real Programming -- a language with structure, a language
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with data types, strong typing, and semicolons. In short, a language
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designed to cripple the creativity of the typical Real Programmer.
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Fortunately, the language adopted by DoD has enough interesting
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features to make it approachable -- it's incredibly complex, includes
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methods for messing with the operating system and rearranging memory,
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and Edsgar Dijkstra doesn't like it [6]. (Dijkstra, as I'm sure you
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know, was the author of "GoTos Considered Harmful" -- a landmark work
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in programming methodology, applauded by PASCAL programmers and Quiche
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Eaters alike.) Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write
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FORTRAN programs in any language.
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The Real Programmer might compromise his principles and work on
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something slightly more trivial than the destruction of life as we
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know it, providing there's enough money in it. There are several Real
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Programmers building video games at Atari, for example. (But not
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playing them -- a Real Programmer knows how to beat the machine every
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time: no challenge in that.) Everyone working at LucasFilm is a Real
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Programmer. (It would be crazy to turn down the money of fifty million
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Star Trek fans.) The proportion of Real Programmers in Computer
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Graphics is somewhat lower than the norm, mostly because nobody has
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found a use for computer graphics yet. On the other hand, all computer
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graphics is done in FORTRAN, so there are a fair number of people
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doing graphics in order to avoid having to write COBOL programs.
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The Real Programmer at Play
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Generally, the Real Programmer plays the same way he works -- with
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computers. He is constantly amazed that his employer actually pays him
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to do what he would be doing for fun anyway (although he is careful
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not to express this opinion out loud). Occasionally, the Real
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Programmer does step out of the office for a breath of fresh air and a
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beer or two. Some tips on recognizing Real Programmers away from the
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computer room:
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* At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner
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talking about operating system security and how to get around it.
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* At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the
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plays against his simulations printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper.
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* At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in
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the sand.
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* At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying "Poor George.
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And he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary."
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* In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on
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running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because
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he never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first
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time.
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The Real Programmer's Natural Habitat
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What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in?
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This is an important question for the managers of Real Programmers.
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Considering the amount of money it costs to keep one on the staff,
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it's best to put him (or her) in an environment where he can get his
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work done.
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The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal.
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Surrounding this terminal are:
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* Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on,
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piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the
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office.
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* Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee.
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Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the
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coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush.
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* Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual
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and the Principles of Operation open to some particularly
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interesting pages.
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* Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year
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1969.
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* Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter
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filled cheese bars -- the type that are made pre-stale at the
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bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending
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machine.
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* Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of
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double-stuff Oreos for special occasions.
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* Underneath the Oreos is a flowcharting template, left there by the
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previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write programs,
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not documentation. Leave that to the maintenance people.)
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The Real Programmer is capable of working 30, 40, even 50 hours at a
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stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, he prefers it that way. Bad
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response time doesn't bother the Real Programmer -- it gives him a
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chance to catch a little sleep between compiles. If there is not
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enough schedule pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to make
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things more challenging by working on some small but interesting part
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of the problem for the first nine weeks, then finishing the rest in
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the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This not only
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impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing of ever
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getting the project done on time, but creates a convenient excuse for
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not doing the documentation. In general:
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* No Real Programmer works 9 to 5 (unless it's the ones at night).
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* Real Programmers don't wear neckties.
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* Real Programmers don't wear high-heeled shoes.
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* Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch [9].
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* A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He
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does, however, know the entire ASCII (or EBCDIC) code table.
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* Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't
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open at three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on Twinkies
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and coffee.
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The Future
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What of the future? It is a matter of some concern to Real Programmers
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that the latest generation of computer programmers are not being
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brought up with the same outlook on life as their elders. Many of them
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have never seen a computer with a front panel. Hardly anyone
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graduating from school these days can do hex arithmetic without a
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calculator. College graduates these days are soft -- protected from
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the realities of programming by source level debuggers, text editors
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that count parentheses, and "user friendly" operating systems. Worst
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of all, some of these alleged "computer scientists" manage to get
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degrees without ever learning FORTRAN! Are we destined to become an
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industry of Unix hackers and PASCAL programmers?
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From my experience, I can only report that the future is bright for
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Real Programmers everywhere. Neither OS\370 nor FORTRAN show any signs
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of dying out, despite all the efforts of PASCAL programmers the world
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over. Even more subtle tricks, like adding structured coding
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constructs to FORTRAN have failed. Oh sure, some computer vendors have
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come out with FORTRAN 77 compilers, but every one of them has a way of
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converting itself back into a FORTRAN 66 compiler at the drop of an
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option card -- to compile DO loops like God meant them to be.
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Even Unix might not be as bad on Real Programmers as it once was. The
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latest release of Unix has the potential of an operating system worthy
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of any Real Programmer -- two different and subtly incompatible user
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interfaces, an arcane and complicated teletype driver, virtual memory.
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If you ignore the fact that it's "structured", even 'C' programming
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can be appreciated by the Real Programmer: after all, there's no type
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checking, variable names are seven (ten? eight?) characters long, and
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the added bonus of the Pointer data type is thrown in -- like having
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the best parts of FORTRAN and assembly language in one place. (Not to
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mention some of the more creative uses for #define.)
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No, the future isn't all that bad. Why, in the past few years, the
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popular press has even commented on the bright new crop of computer
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nerds and hackers ([7] and [8]) leaving places like Stanford and
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M.I.T. for the Real World. From all evidence, the spirit of Real
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Programming lives on in these young men and women. As long as there
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are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there
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will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve The Problem,
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saving the documentation for later. Long live FORTRAN!
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Acknowledgement
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I would like to thank Jan E., Dave S., Rich G., Rich E., for their
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help in characterizing the Real Programmer, Heather B. for the
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illustration, Kathy E. for putting up with it, and atd!avsdS:mark for
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the initial inspiration.
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References
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[1] Feirstein, B., "Real Men don't Eat Quiche", New York, Pocket
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Books, 1982.
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[2] Wirth, N., "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs", Prentice
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Hall, 1976.
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[3] Ilson, R., "Recent Research in Text Processing", IEEE Trans. Prof.
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Commun., Vol. PC-23, No. 4, Dec. 4, 1980.
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[4] Finseth, C., "Theory and Practice of Text Editors -- or -- a
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Cookbook for an EMACS", B.S. Thesis, MIT/LCS/TM-165, Massachusetts
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Institute of Technology, May 1980.
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[5] Weinberg, G., "The Psychology of Computer Programming", New York,
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Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971, p. 110.
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[6] Dijkstra, E., "On the GREEN language submitted to the DoD",
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Sigplan notices, Vol. 3 No. 10, Oct 1978.
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[7] Rose, Frank, "Joy of Hacking", Science 82, Vol. 3 No. 9, Nov 82,
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pp. 58-66.
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[8] "The Hacker Papers", Psychology Today, August 1980.
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[9] sdcarl!lin, "Real Programmers", UUCP-net, Thu Oct 21 16:55:16 1982
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_________________________________________________________________
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Last updated on Fri Jul 21 10:11:38 1995
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Michael Stillwell / mist@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
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_________________________________________________________________
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Disclaimer:
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This is a personal page published by the author. The ideas and
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information expressed on it have not been approved or authorised by
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Monash University either explicitly or impliedly. In no event shall
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Monash University be liable for any damages whatsoever resulting from
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any action arising in connection with the use of this information or
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its publication, including any action for infringement of copyright or
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defamation.
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_________________________________________________________________
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